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THE SONG
OF SONGS
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Other Continental Commentaries from Fortress Press
Genesis 1-11
Claus Westermann
Genesis 12-36
Claus Westermann
Genesis 37-50
Claus Westermann
Psalms 1-59
Hans-Joachim Kraus
Psalms 60-150
Hans-Joachim Kraus
Isaiah 1-12
Hans Walter Wolff
Obadiah and Jonah
Hans Wolter Wolff
Haggai
Hans Walter Wolff
Micah
Hans Walter Wolff
Matthew 1-7
Ulrich Luz
Galatians
Dieter Luhrmann
Revelation
Jurgen Roloff
OTHMAR KEEL
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THE SONG
OF SONGS
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A Continental Commentary
Translated by
Frederick J. Gaiser
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Contents
Preface
Translator's Preface
INTRODUCTION
Origins and Allegorizing of the Song of Songs
The Cultural Background
The Date of Composition
Typological and Allegorical Recasting
Sitz im Leben, Composition, Literary Forms, and Language
The Sitz im Leben
Does a Comprehensive Plan Underlie the Song of Songs?
Formal Elements and Categories
Excursus: The Source of the Praise of Bodily Features in
the Descriptive Songs
Formal Elements and Categories: Conclusion
Similes, Metaphors, Roles, and Situations
The Song of Songs and Yahwism
Love as an Elemental Power
The Theological Relevance of Love as an Elemental Force
COMMENTARY
1:1 Title
1:2-4 Longing for the Greatest Pleasure
1:5-6 Different from the Others
1:7-8 If You Want to Find Him
1:9-1 1 The Charms of the Beloved
1:12 The Fragrance of Nard
1:13-14 What He Means to Me
1.15-17 "Under the linden"
2:1-3 "Love's sweet breath,-a new-born life"
2:4-5 Sick with Love
2:6-7 Do Not Stir up Love! I
2:8-9 "Nothing restrains love"
2:10-I 3 The Time Has Come
2:14 The Dove in the Clefts of the Rock
2:15 The Free-Running Admirers
2:16-17 "You are mine, I am yours"
3:1-5 Yearnings in the Night
3:6-8 Tremendum et fascinosum 1
3:9-1Od A Magnificent Palanquin
3: IOe-II A Day of Gladness of Heart
4:1-7 All Beauty and Delight Reside in You (Descriptive Song I)
4:8 Descend from the Peaks
4:9-I 1 You Drive Me Crazy!
4:12-5:1 The Paradise of Love
5:2-8 A Missed Opportunity
5:9-16 Distinguished among Ten Thousand (Descriptive Song II)
6:1-3 Confidence
6:4-7 Tremendum et fascinosum II
6:8-10 Like a Goddess
6: 1 1 Patient/Impatient Checking
6:12-13 (7: I) Shulammite Is Too Good for That!
7:1-5 (2-6) The Prince's Daughter (Descriptive Song III)
7:6-9 (7-10) The Tree of Life
7:10 (11) Lifting the Curse
7:11-12 (12-13) How Pleasant to Go to the Fields
7:13 (14)-8:2 If You Were Only My Brother
8:3-4 Do Not Stir up Love! II
8:5ab Who Has Become So Complaisant?
8:5c-e From Generation to Generation
8:6-7 Love as the Opponent of Death
8:8-10 Futile Pride
8:11-12 Solomon's Vineyard and Mine
8:13-14 A Secret Understanding
Sources of the Illustrations
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index of Biblical References
Preface
[It is impossible for me] to despise that which is mistakenly called physical love; it
is the substance of a sacrament, and I pay it the same respect I give to the
unconsecrated bread, also the substance of a sacrament; the separation of love
into so-called physical love and the other kind is open to criticism, perhaps
inadmissible; no love is either purely physical or purely of the other kind; both
always contain a portion of the other, even if only a tiny one. We are neither pure
spirits nor pure bodies, and it may be that the angels envy us our ever-changing
mixture of both.
Heinrich B611, Brief an einen jungen Katholiken
The Song of Songs has so much drama, so many experiences of
longing and love, of good fortune and sorrow, that one can certainly
enjoy the poems without lengthy commentary. They are effective in
themselves, and long-winded explanations can only disturb the reader's
personal appropriation of them. But one who comes to treasure these
poems, and reads them again and again will eventually be directed by
something in the text-perhaps a change in speaker or a particular simile
or metaphor-to ask questions about what the songs really mean, about
whether a particular interpretation is correct. These are, after all, poems
from a distant and foreign world. So an expert who has studied that world
and its languages will be summoned to begin an intellectual endeavor
that will always be limited to particular issues. It can only provide interpretive helps and can never replace the poems themselves.
The present commentary has innumerable predecessors, and, even
though the debate with them is limited, I did not want to omit it altogether. The interpreter stands in the midst of a serious conversation
with other interpreters. Above all, I have engaged four recent major commentators: Rudolph, Gerleman, Pope, and Krinetzki (for the complete references, see the bibliography). These scholars represent four
important streams of recent exegesis of the Song. Rudolph's commentary
remains strongly in the tradition of Herder, Wetzstein (see note 24), and
Budde, who used the analogy of modern recent Arab songs from Palestine and Syria to interpret the Song as a collection of folk songs, more
or less directly connected with (peasant) wedding feasts. Gerleman understands the Song as literature, with a clear dependence on the love
poetry of ancient Egypt. Pope seeks the roots of many of the Song's
expressions and metaphors in Northwest Semitic philology and mythology (Ugarit) and in the sacred marriages of Sumer. Krinetzki strongly
accents the form of the material and uses depth psychology to attempt to
explain its motifs. Because my conversation with these authors is often
lively, especially where disagreements are evident, I want to emphasize at
the outset that the consensus is broader than the impression that may be
given here.
I attempt to pay equal attention to the form and the content of the
songs, with indirect reference to the Hebrew text. In order to shed light on
the development and analysis of the various motifs I have sought to
include both written and iconographic parallels; yet here too the format
required that the results of many years of research be made as accessible
as possible to the reader. Much of what is presented here is more fully
developed in my preliminary study to this work: Deine Blicke sind Tauben. Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes, SBS 114/115 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1984). But some things are not treated there and are
new here-for example, all the observations about the delineation and
structure of the individual poems and also much of the material about the
background of the motifs. Only 50 of the present 158 illustrations are
found in the preliminary study.
In this commentary I cite Hebrew or other foreign languages only
when necessary. The traditional terms "perfect" and "imperfect" are
used for the two most important forms of the Hebrew verb. In narrative
texts, the Hebrew perfect can be rendered with the English imperfect,
perfect, or past perfect; in the case of verbs signifying the mental or
physical state of the subject (verbal adjectives) and verbs of perception, it
often has a present sense. Finally, the perfect can also vividly portray
future events as though in the present. The Hebrew imperfect is employed chiefly for repeated and continuous actions in the past and present, for future transactions and events, and to give modal meanings
(should, may, can, etc.).
I am grateful to my friend and colleague, Dominique Barthelemy;
conversations with him about introductory questions, especially regarding the process of canonization, were invariably profitable. As always,
and with more love than ever, my wife contributed a large number of the
drawings. The book is dedicated to our sister-in-law, Esther Leu, and our
friend, Hans Heinrich Schmid.
Othmar Keel
Translator's Preface
Whereas Professor Keel provides his own German translation of
the Hebrew text of the Song, this English version makes use of the NRSV
as the standard translation. Where Keel's translation differs markedly
from the NRSV, the latter is replaced with an English rendering of the
former. Such material is enclosed in brackets. Words in parentheses are
additions to the Hebrew text made by Keel in his German translation.
Angle brackets signal material that Keel deems to be a gloss.
Professor Keel provided his own translation of the Egyptian texts
cited. Here standard English translations have been used whenever possible, seeking the version that best renders Keel's meaning. Where no
English version was adequate, Keel's German has been translated into
English. This material is enclosed in brackets. Other parentheses and
brackets in nonbiblical texts are those of the several translations cited
and do not, therefore, have uniform meaning in the present commentary.
Standard English translations of the Egyptian love songs do not use
completely uniform reference systems. For consistency, the system employed throughout this book is that of M. V. Fox (The Song ofSongs and
the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs [Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1985]), even when the translation itself comes from another source.
Where English and Hebrew versification in biblical texts differs,
the Hebrew references are included in parentheses, e.g., Cant. 7:1 (2).
In the narrative, Song of Songs is regularly abbreviated Song. In
textual references, the standard abbreviation, Cant., is used.
Frederick J. Gaiser
Introduction
Origins and Allegorizing of the Song of Songs
If one encountered the Song anywhere but in the Bible, one would hardly hesitate to call it a collection of love songs-which of course would be basically correct. The singular form of the title ("the Song of Songs") seems to suggest a unified composition, but the term "Song" is frequently used collectively in Hebrew (see the commentary on 1:1 a). The title at the beginning of Hosea ("The word of the Lord that came to Hosea") or Isaiah ("The vision of Isaiah") leads no one to read the book of Hosea as a single poem or the book of Isaiah as a single vision, even though the separate sections of these books are not clearly distinguished from one another (in contrast, say, to the book of Psalms).
Neither should the ascription to Solomon disturb the impression that one is dealing here with love songs. Tradition remembers Solomon as the most glorious of all Israelite kings. A large harem and interesting relationships with women come with this territory. Solomon was notorious for both; moreover, he was known as a great songwriter (see the commentary on l:lb). The rabbis of the first century A.D. thought that Solomon's songs, as contained in the Song, had been collected and written down by the same officials of the Judean king Hezekiah (721-693 B.C.) who had also put together a collection of Solomon's proverbs (Prov. 25:1).'
The Cultural Background
Even though the rabbis' supposed date of the collection is questionable, their references to Solomon and the officials of Hezekiah correctly iden tify the milieu that gives rise to these love songs. Thanks to the understanding granted him by God (I Kgs 3), Solomon was thought to be the
wisest of all human beings (1 Kgs 4:29-34 [5:9-14]) and was therefore
regarded as the patron of wisdom. Just as the cultic poetry (Psalms) stood
under the patronage of David, the wisdom poetry was related to Solomon. Such patronage, however, does not refer to authorship in the modern sense. Reflecting on the course of the world in the third/second
century B.C., the Preacher (Ecclesiastes) still speaks in the role of Solomon; even a first-century B.C. Alexandrian book of wisdom written (in
Greek!) one thousand years after Solomon carries the title, "The Wisdom
of Solomon."
The world under Solomon's patronage was the world of the upper
class, of high officials and wisdom teachers who provided their sons and
perhaps their daughters an education. The Lamentations of Jeremiah,
arising out of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 s.c., bewail the collapse
of this world. There one hears of leaders who have become like deer who
find no pasture (Lam. 1:6; cf. Cant. 2:2, 9). Their sons, used to spending
their time singing and making (secular) music, are compelled to carry
millstones (Lam. 5:13-14). These precious young men are described in
Lamentations as "worth their weight in fine gold"; they were "purer than
snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, their
hair like sapphire" (4:2, 7). These words are strikingly reminiscent of the
similar description of the lover in Cant. 5:10-16 (for more on these
descriptions, see pp. 18-22).
The wisdom teacher was the third bearer of religious knowledge in
the ancient world, along with the priest, who administered the household
of God in the temple and knew its rules precisely, and the prophet, who
saw God in dreams and visions and who spoke God's word (Jer. 18:18;
Ezek. 7:26). The wise ones did not gain their knowledge like the priests,
through patriarchal instruction and contact with the holy, or like the
prophets, through God's personal address, but rather through their own
alert minds, through observation of the course of everyday affairs, and
through attention to the experiences of earlier generations. They regarded humanity and its work, the world and its affairs, as creations of
God. Thus both their observations and the rules they formulated about
them had theological significance, even when not explicitly stated. Many
of their sayings sound quite profane; take, for example, the way they
characterize some types of people-like the lazy:
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Here are the beginnings of what will develop into modern psychology,
into a very broad and differentiated branch of learning.
Love was an area of human life that particularly puzzled the wise:
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The focus is clearly on the fourth. What is it that causes the young man to leap upon the mountains and bound over the hills (Cant. 2:8)? Yet for the most part the wise men and the teachers were less interested in the motivation behind such actions than in the dangers thereof. Most of these teachers were apparently elderly. Ezekiel (7:26) replaces "wise" (Jer. 18:18) with "elders." Nevertheless, their instructions in matters of love are remarkably sensuous. Although they naturally paint a dark and terrible picture of the "loose woman" who seduces unsuspecting young men (Proverbs 7), at the same time they urge the student to enjoy his young wife. In language closely related to that of the Song, the wife is described as a lovely deer, a graceful doe. "May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love." He is urged to satisfy her so that she does not become disappointed and turn to strangers, who will then drink from his "springs" (Prov. 5:15-20).2
Although many wisdom teachers had a positive attitude toward sensual pleasures, as long as these remained within the bonds of marriage, others tended toward a less sensual, more serious portrayal of women and love-for example, the austere Jesus Sirach (ca. 180 B.C.):
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In addition to the danger addressed here, the wise reject adultery primarily because it infringes on the rights of other men.
Yet while the students were scratching these admonitions and similar weighty matters onto one side of their papyri and ostraca (pottery shards used as writing material), they, and those of their teachers who
retained something of their youth, were adding a series of love songs to
the other side. At least that practice is what one finds in Egypt, and the
Egyptian love songs are closer in language and mentality to the Bible's
than any others in the ancient Near East. The collection of love songs on
Papyrus Chester Beatty I stands alongside a document praising Pharaoh
Ramses V (an example of bureaucratic literature) and a record of a cattle
sale (another thing the students had to learn about). On the Turin Papyrus one finds love songs on one side and legal protocols on the other; on
the Harris Papyrus 500 two entertaining stories are opposite the love
songs. All indications are that in Israel too it was the "wise" (i.e., government officials) and their students who composed and perhaps in some
cases gathered, wrote down, and circulated the love songs. Their education explains the learned, rich, and differentiated language of the Song;
their privileged status explains the familiarity with every kind of luxury
so apparent among the Song's authors; their self-assurance explains the
freedom to write about individual experiences and feelings.
The Date of Composition
As already explained, the ascription of the songs to Solomon does not
indicate authorship in the modern sense; thus, one must depend solely on
internal criteria to determine the time of writing, not only of the individual songs but also of the final collection.
Gerleman (76-77) assumes that most of the material did come
from the tenth century a.c.-the time of Solomon-because the Solomonic era has been characterized as a period of humanistic enlightenment during which Israel had active contact with Egypt and its love songs
(note Solomon's marriage to an Egyptian princess; 1 Kgs 3:1; 7:8; 9:16,
24; 11:1).
But contact between Israel and Egypt was also intensive in the
time of King Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century B.C. (Isa. 30:2;
31:1). The praise of Mutirdis, high priestess of Hathor (see note 41),
demonstrates that ancient love poetry was not yet a thing of the past in
the Egypt of 700 B.C. As mentioned, this was a time of significant literary
activity in Judah (Prov. 25:1). The influx of refugees from the Northern
Kingdom after the fall of Samaria (722/721 B.C.) would explain the inclusion of material that seems to come from the north (e.g., Cant. 4:8).
The end of the eighth century B.C. is also the earliest time to make sense of
the many Aramaisms found in the Song. A strong Aramaic influence
would probably have shown up first in the Northern Kingdom by way of
Damascus. It was assumed in Isaiah's day that every educated Judean
knew Aramaic (2 Kgs 18:26); and Isaiah presupposes a widespread
acquaintance with love songs when he takes one out of context and uses it
to pronounce judgment on Judah (like the Song, it employs the metaphor
of the beloved as vineyard; cf. Isa. 5:1 and Cant. 1:6). Notice also how
Isaiah rhetorically describes the flirtatiousness of the daughters of Zion,
who are so often mentioned in the Song, and who, like the female partner in the Song, "walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their
eyes" (Isa. 3:16-17; see the commentary on Cant. 4:4).
Other motifs in the book are impossible prior to the end of the seventh century B.c. The oasis at En-gedi was not settled and cultivated until then (see the commentary on 1:14b); similarly, many of the terms used for exotic spices and perfumes point to a late preexilic or early exilic date.' During the same period, Ezekiel, like Isaiah before him, used love songs to gain a hearing for his message (Ezek. 33:32).
But the Song has one Persian loanword (4:13) and perhaps even one from Greek (3:9). Persian loanwords are possible at the earliest in the sixth century B.C. This fact, along with the state of the development of several other ideas, causes many scholars to date the book in the late Persian or even in the Greek period.4 Yet no one who knows the ancient Egyptian love songs can fail to see that these are much closer to the Song than the Idylls of Theocritus (third century B.C.) and similar Hellenistic poetry.
In my opinion, the collection most nearly fits between the eighth and sixth centuries B.c. At that time ancient Egyptian love literature was still flourishing (a fact that has not been demonstrated for the Hellenistic era; but see n. 42), and ancient Near Eastern motifs were enjoying a final heyday in Israel (see figs. 9, 28-29, 34, 54-55, 57, 85, and 86, among others). This dating does not exclude the possibility that individual words and verses or even whole songs (e.g., 3:9-10d) entered the collection at a later time. As with other OT books, one must assume a rather complicated history behind the formation of the Song; it will be very difficult to ever achieve a high level of certainty about this matter.
The map on page 36, designating the towns and regions mentioned in the Song, helps clarify its geographic origin. Given the several occurrences of Jerusalem in refrains (probably added by the redactor), this city must have been the setting for the final redaction. But because, other than Jerusalem and En-gedi, all Israelite locations mentioned in the Song lie in the Northern Kingdom, and because, other than Kedar, all nonIsraelite locations are found even farther north, many of the individual songs must originally have been sung in the northern areas.
Typological and Allegorical Recasting
The oldest example of work on the collection that moves beyond the traditional Hebrew text appears to be the translation into Greek, the Septuagint, which likely took place in the first century B.c. The translator attempted to produce as literal a version as possible, leaving untranslated individual words he did not understand. The Septuagint has no trace of allegorizing or spiritualizing the message. Indeed, many times the erotic
sense is more blunt than in the original Hebrew. For example, instead of
the abstract plural o•i n ("love, joys of love"-1:2, 4; 4:10; 5:1; 7:12 [13]),
the Septuagint prefers o^-i~ ("[the two] breasts") and translates accordingly (Gerleman, 77-82).
Three passages in rabbinic texts of the first or second centuries A.D. show that the natural, literal meaning of the Song was still widespread in Judaism at that time. For example, the first saying probably comes from about 90 A.D.: "Our rabbis have taught on Tannaite authority: He who recites a verse of the Song of Songs and turns it into a kind of love-song, and he who recites a verse in the banquet hall not at the proper time [but in a time of carousal] bring evil into the world."5 When God asks what should keep people busy while eating and drinking, the rabbis answer: the appropriate teachings of the law!
Rabbi Aqiba (died 135 A.D.) turns even bigger guns against those who use the Song "profanely": "He who warbles the Song of Songs in a banquet-hall and makes it into a kind of love-song has no portion in the world to come."6 Most interesting, however, is a tradition placed in the mouth of Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel (ca. 140 A.D.):
There were no days better for Israelites than the fifteenth of Ab [in August] and the Day of Atonement [in October]. For on those days Jerusalemite girls go out in borrowed white dresses-so as not to shame those who owned none. All the dresses had to be immersed. And the Jerusalemite girls go out and dance in the vineyards. What did they say? "Fellow, look around and see-choose what you want! Don't look for beauty, look for family." ... And so it says, "Go forth you daughters ofLion, and behold King Solomon with the crown with which his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness o/ his heart " (Cant. 3:11).1
This passage apparently means that at harvest time festivals in the vineyards and orchards gave young men and women a chance to meet; during these festivals portions of the Song were sung (see the commentary on 2:10-13).
How then did allegorical interpretations arise that see, for example, Yahweh in the radiant male lover and Israel in his female counterpart? Certainly not because the Song was originally meant as allegory. It is true that the OT uses relations between men and women as models (metaphors) for the relation between Yahweh and Israel (Hosea 2; Jeremiah 2), occasionally giving these models allegorical development (Ezekiel 16 and 23). But these passages limit the comparison (tertium comparationis) to the legal aspects of the relationship, especially to the question of faithfulness; they avoid sexual or erotic symbolism. What the
author intends to say always either shines clearly through the imagery or
is made explicit. This whole tradition is typical of the prophetic literature
and limited strictly to it.
But the Song has always been considered a part of the wisdom tradition. In this tradition the relation between man and woman sometimes serves as a model for the relation between student and wisdom. For example, Proverbs 1-9 contrasts Lady Wisdom to the foreign woman, who is depicted as a seductress. The "Solomon" of Wis. 8:2ff. wants to take wisdom for a bride. But here too, as in the case of the prophetic literature, the true meaning of the text remains clear; the limits are maintained.
The Song began to be interpreted allegorically by early Jewish groups like the Pharisaic scribes (and probably the Essenes), at the latest in the second half of the first century B.C. (not first by Rabbi Aqiba at the beginning of the second century A.D.).8 Allegorizing presupposes that the song had achieved canonical status in its "profane" sense; without this status, allegorizing makes no sense (Rudolph, 83). Allegorizing begins when new circumstances and new ways of thinking can no longer come to grips with an old and honored text. Because of its status the text cannot simply be discarded (just as Greek-speaking Alexandria, e.g., could not discard Homer's Iliad), but its contents can no longer be accepted as they are. Thus one claims to have discovered a deeper meaning in the text-a meaning that is only there because one has first inserted it. The canonical status of the Song was based on its Solomonic authorship and its established place in the wisdom literature. Allegorizing became necessary because of the final loss of Israelite independence with the end of the Hasmonean dynasty and the beginning of Roman rule (63 B.C.). The resulting separation of national or "profane" life from religious life was stronger than ever. Once understood as national-religious literature, the canon was seen more and more as cultic-religious literature, and its natural interpretation became more and more offensive to groups rigorously and monomaniacally fixed only on the question of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. The rabbinic texts cited previously (notes 5-7) show how difficult it was to suppress the natural interpretation. The results of the allegorizers' search for a deeper meaning were arbitrary, unsatisfactory, and often revoltingly grotesque, as any history of interpretation of the Song will show.
I can illustrate this point with two random examples involving Cant. 1:13 ("My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts"). Allegorizers take this verse to mean "one thing between two others" which signifies, among other things, either the presence of Yahweh (Shekinah) between the two cherubim above the ark (Rashi, Ibn Ezra) or Christ between the OT and the NT (Philo Carpasius, Cyril of Alexandria).9 If two allegorizers ever agree on the interpretation of a verse it is only because one has copied from the other. I will forgo even a brief account of the dramatic shifts in typological and allegorical exegesis. These shifts bear interesting witness to the history of piety and theology, but, as pure inventions, they contribute nothing to a better understanding of the Song.
Yet, despite feverish attempts at suppression by a clerical mentality, the natural interpretation has frequently broken through. The NT has no trace of an allegorical interpretation of the Song. Did the allegorizers understand God better than Jesus did? When the Christian church received the Song from the Pharisaic scribes, who were dominant after the destruction of Jerusalem, the book came with a thoroughly established allegorical sense. Yet Origen (185-253/54 A.D.), who, along with Hyppolytus of Rome, was the first teacher of the church to take up the Song, still saw it clearly as a work of profane poetry. He called it a wedding song (epithalamium)-nothing less than the prototype of all pagan, Greek, and Roman wedding songs. But understood in this literal way the Song, according to Origen, was mere superficial babble, unworthy of God.10 Like most so-called allegorizers, he basically advocated a typological meaning: what was described as a profane wedding song was actually a model for a higher reality. Yet he did not seem to believe that the Song was originally written in code, as an allegorical portrayal of another reality. Someone inclined toward Platonism can easily regard the whole creation-including the love described in the Song-as an encoded book of divine secrets. One can then read the Song under the slogan, "All earth comprises / Is symbol alone" (Goethe, Faust, Great Books of the Western World [Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952] 294). But that view has nothing to do with exegesis in any precise sense.
How intensely Origen himself still felt the natural, literal meaning of the Song is demonstrated by his urgent warning that it be read only by those who are deaf to the enticements of physical love; otherwise it could seem that the Holy Scriptures were awakening such feelings-a shocking idea! He notes with approval a Jewish regulation that allowed only mature people (over age 30) to read the Song."
Amid all the devaluing, even demonizing, of the body and physical needs, Cyril of Jerusalem (313-387 A.D.) also felt compelled to polemicize against a natural understanding: "For you must not, accepting the vulgar, superficial interpretation of the woe's, suppose that the Canticle is an expression of carnal, sexual love."12 Despite the heavy indoctri nation to interpret the Song allegorically or typologically, many in fourthcentury Jerusalem were apparently unbiased enough not to find symbols
of Jesus' passion in the litter described in 3:9-1 Od (an interpretation Cyril
demanded of his hearers).
But not only plain common sense rejected these unreasonable demands. Exegesis of the Antioch school, less prone to allegory than its counterpart in Alexandria, also had difficulty with such antics. The Antiochians were as little inclined as the Alexandrians or Cyril of Jerusalem to accept the natural and literal meaning of the Song, but they sought another way out. According to a letter of the best-known Antioch exegete, Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428 A.D.), discussed in 553 A.D. at the fifth Ecumenical Council (the second in Constantinople), the Song was Solomon's homage to pharaoh's daughter, meant to defend his marriage with her; thus, as a purely secular poem, it had no place in the canon. In practice that point was true-it was not then, nor had it ever been, read aloud in synagogue or church." The practice of reading from the Song at Passover, often regarded as ancient, cannot be clearly demonstrated prior to the eighth century A.D. (Rudolph, 77, 93). Theodore of Mopsuestia was naturally not alone in his low estimate of the Song as profane literature; he represented an entire movement. In the ninth century A.D., the Syrian Isho'dad of Hedatta (died ca. 872 A.D.) could still write: "The blessed interpreter [Theodore of Mopsuestia] and all those who followed in his footsteps relate it [the Song of Songs] to the daughter of pharaoh."14
In the twelfth century A.D., an anonymous rabbi in northern France posited that the Song was a song of praise written by Solomon about his favorite wife, and even the well-known Ibn Ezra (died 1167) interpreted the Song in a natural sense (though offering also a secondary typological meaning as a defense against attacks by the orthodox)." At the turn of the fourteenth century A.D., an anonymous Alemannic poet used verses of the Song as the basis for forty-three "Minnelieder Salomos zu Ehren seiner Geliebten" (love songs of Solomon in honor of his be- loved).16 Similarly, composers of historical novels about medieval times, from J. V. von Scheffel to Umberto Eco, are no doubt correct when they have their young monastic heroes (from Ekkehard to Adson) speak in the words of the Song when touched by unexpected passion. The language of this book seems made to order to express the feelings for which these characters had no words.
Nevertheless, in academic circles, even the rise of humanism and the Reformation were unable to breach the solid front of typology and allegory. The humanist Sebastien Chateillon, whose intellectual honesty prohibited him from seeing anything but erotic songs in the Song, concluded therefore (like Theodore of Mopsuestia earlier) that the book did not belong in the canon. Because of this view, Calvin forced him to leave Geneva in 1545, saying, "Our chief disagreement concerns the Song of Songs. He [Chateillon] saw it as a lascivious and obscene poem, in which Solomon describes his shameless love affairs.""
A new point of view did not appear until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hugo Grotius formulated his position on the Song briefly and directly in his "Annotationes ad Vetus Testamentum" (1644): The Hebrews call this the most noble song because of its many elegant formulations, which are lost by translation into other languages. It is a dialogue of love between Solomon and the daughter of the Egyptian king, enhanced by two choirs-one of young men, another of maidens-who keep watch near the bridal chamber. The marital secrets are concealed here by an honorable cloak of words. This is the reason that the ancient Hebrews wanted this book read only by those about to marry." Everything up to this point was already to be found in Origen. But then Grotius discretely distances himself from the allegorical interest of Origen and his successors (including the reformers). He admits: "In order to make it endure longer, it is believed that Solomon composed this writing with such artistry that without great distortion one could find in it allegories expressing the love of God for his people Israel-as the Targum perceives and demonstrates.... But that love was the prototype [typos! of the love of Christ for the church." In his own comments, however, Grotius primarily cites parallels from classical authors like Theocritus, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and many others, mentioning only twice an allegorical or typological interpretation."
Then, in the eighteenth century, many representatives of a literal, natural interpretation of the Song appeared. The most forceful and convincing representative was J. G. Herder; because of his wide knowledge of different peoples it was self-evident to him that the Song was a collection of love songs.19 Herder also influenced Goethe's evaluation in the "West-Eastern Divan": "We lament the fact that we are permitted no full enjoyment of the fragmentary poems, interwoven into and overladen upon one another as they are.... Sometimes we thought to draw something out of the delightful confusion and piece it together, but the enigmatic and inscrutable character of these few pages is precisely what provides their charm and personality."20 (I have yet to deal with the problem of the composition of the material; see pp. 16-17.)
The nineteenth century saw the last of the allegorical or typological commentaries by significant OT scholars. The typological commentary of Franz Delitzsch appeared in 1851;21 the allegorical commentary of E. W. Hengstenberg in 1853. Such interpretations continued for approximately another hundred years within the Catholic Church. Then in 1943 Pius XII's encyclical Divino afflante spiritu not only allowed but even required attention to literary forms. As a result, after the war a series of works appeared justifying a literal and natural interpretation of the Song.22 Thus ended the Song's captivity under the capricious rule of a spiritualistic Babylon; all major churches now accept its return to the modest surroundings of home. Just as Israel's deportation to foreign lands produced conscious reflection on its uniqueness and role among the nations, so the Babylonian captivity of the Song has led to a deepened understanding of its specific function within the biblical testimonies about humankind and humanity's relationship to God and the world (see also pp. 30ff.).
Sitz im Leben, Composition, Literary Forms, and Language
Once the Song had been rescued from an existence beyond space and time and brought back down to earth, more detailed questions arose about its cultural milieu.
The Sitz im Leben
The traditional notion that the life setting of the Song was Solomon's marriage to the daughter of pharaoh was no longer tenable for the simple reason that nowhere in the book is Solomon directly addressed. He is mentioned only in the third person.
On the basis of the accounts of a Near Eastern specialist, E. Renan noted in 1860 (even before his well-known Mission en Phenicie, 1860/61) that the seven-day marriage festivals reported in the OT (Gen. 29:27; Judg. 14:12, 17) were very similar to those celebrated in Arab countries right up to the present. These festivals are accompanied by much singing, which was also already the case in the OT (cf. Jer. 7:34; 16:9; 25:10; 33:11). He saw the Song as the best-known collection of songs for such an occasion.23 A bit later, the longtime German consul in Damascus, J. G. Wetzstein, advocated the same view, supporting it with ethnological material. Wetzstein had observed how in Hauran, an area south of Damascus, during the seven-day wedding ceremonies the bride and groom were enthroned (on a threshing table) and celebrated as king and queen. The songs sung at these ceremonies had many similarities to those in the Song.24 This interpretation met with considerable approval, both because of its plausibility and because it saw the Song as a hymn to modest and monogamous marriage (see Budde and Wurthwein). Nevertheless, its inadequacies did not remain hidden for long: the Song never uses the word "queen" for the bride; the man is never referred to as "groom"; and the only section in which the term "wedding" appears (3:11) was, according to the Mishnah, sung at a festival in the vineyards that had nothing to do with marriage (see note 7 above).
Gustav Dalman, who lived in Palestine for a long time and who
possessed a remarkably detailed knowledge of its people and customs,
writes in the introduction to his large collection of Palestinian songs
(published in 1901 as Pa/astinischer Diwan):
Not all these songs (which descriptively portray the pulchritude of a woman, or,
rarely, a man) can be applied directly to a bride and groom; their beauty is
generally given less attention. This point does not preclude the existence of
regions where things might be done differently-which, according to Wetzstein's
accounts, is just the case in the broad environs of Damascus and part of Hauran.
But the use of descriptive songs in the marriage rites, as reported there, is by no
means a common Palestinian custom, and there is no justification for insisting
that even there such usage would be absolutely invariable. Descriptive songs are
sung on all kinds of occasions, not only at weddings. Thus they can only be
referred to a bridal party when that is directly stipulated. One needs to take this
into account when exegeting the Song of Songs, which, based on its content, does
not consist of actual wedding songs but rather love songs (which, of course, might
have their place also at weddings). (X11)
But the Arab culture of Palestine was not the only new factor to be
considered by nineteenth-century Western scholars seeking an appropriate understanding of the Song; there was also the new material from
the ancient Near East. Spurred by Napoleon's Egyptian expedition in
1798, ancient Near Eastern research, including the discovery of the world
portrayed in its images and the deciphering of hieroglyphics and cuneiform, made an enormous impression on the scholarly world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The question of how to view the
Bible in this newly discovered universe led to protracted and sometimes
vehement disagreements. One side regarded the Bible merely as a late
and undistinguished witness to the advanced civilization of the ancient
Near East; the other tried to maintain as fully as possible the claim that
every sentence of the Bible bore witness to a unique revelation. Many
scholars, for whom a number of passages in the Song were too artistic, too
lofty, or too exotic to be attributed to Palestinian or OT peasant marriage
rites, looked for an appropriate Sitz im Leben in the newly discovered world of the ancient Near East. They thought they found it in the fertility cults depicting affirmations of love between a god and goddess (e.g., the sun-god and the moon-goddess25 or Isis and Osiris26 ). Most widely accepted were the attempts to explain the Song as a collection of texts from the cult of the Sumerian pair Dumuzi and Inanna-honored among the Akkadians as Tammuz and Ishtar-whose counterparts in Syria were Baal and Anat (or Astarte). To demonstrate the existence of such cults in biblical Israel, one could point not only to the prophetic condemnation of Baal worship but also (for the Mesopotamian form) to a specific reference to women weeping for Tammuz at the north gate of the temple of Jerusalem (Ezek. 8:14). Wittekindt, Haller, and Schmokel wrote their commentaries under the assumption that the texts of the Song came from this cult. The commentaries by Ringgren and Pope still have considerable sympathy for this position, even though they do not represent it directly. One of its chief difficulties is that the Song's presumed main characters are never named; thus, at best, one can see the present text only as a wellexpurgated version of such cultic songs. Even apart from the names of the main characters, literary connections are minimal (see pp. 25-30). Above all, one misses any references in the Song to the priests, altars, cleansing rituals, and other cultic matters that appear in the Sumerian sacred marriage songs.27 In addition, the cultic interpretation presupposes an overall dramatic structure (cultic drama), which for the Song can be achieved only by transposing texts quite arbitrarily (as in Schmokel; see pp. 15-17). Schmokel's commentary (1956) is a recent, though failed, attempt to comprehend the Song as a book of sacred marriage texts.
Either the threshing table (as the rostrum for a simple peasant wedding) or the ancient Near Eastern temple (as the site of a magnificent divine wedding) would provide the Song, each in its own way, with an unequivocal Sitz im Leben (every form critic's dream). Either the peasant wedding, with its simple and austere customs, or the hieros gamos (sacred marriage), so interesting to students of comparative religion, would be able to satisfy the need for an ethical or religious orientation. Delitzsch even wanted to see in the Song nothing less than a prototype of the innerTrinitarian "marriage": the bride relates to the bridegroom as the church relates to Christ, and the church relates to Christ as the Son relates to the Father (see note 21). But the actual state of affairs appears to be at once more complex (in regard to literary forms) and more prosaic (in regard to religious or theological intensity).
Ancient Egyptian love songs were first made available to a broad audience in 1874. Parallels to the Song were sought immediately.28 But in his 1899 edition of the love songs on the London Papyrus Harris 500, W. M. Muller declared that all the parallels between the Song and Egyptian love songs were insignificant: "Hebrew and Egyptian poetry are just as different as Hebrew and Egyptian thought."29 Whether OT scholars accepted this position or simply overlooked the Egyptian love poetry, they made only sporadic mention of these important parallels over the next fifty years. Not until Schott published all the then-known Egyptian love songs and related texts in a handy translation (1950) and A. Hermann added his important and impressive study (Altagyptische Liebesdichtung [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1959]) were scholars made aware of this aid to the understanding of OT love songs. In his 1965 commentary, Gerleman interpreted the Song-alas, quite one-sidedly-from the perspective of the Egyptian parallels, rejecting any connection to marriage or to the Near Eastern cults. The valuable book by M. V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), stands in the same tradition (with the same onesidedness). This work, which arrived too late to be considered here, is not only a comparative literary study but also a full commentary on the Song. For Gerleman and Fox, the poems of the Song-like the ancient Egyptian love songs for Hermann-are love lyrics, formulations of the moods and experiences of lovers, standing in a particular literary tradition and expressed in the language of poetic fiction (note the comments under the rubric "Ort"in Gerleman's commentary). Similarly, Dalman had already designated the majority of Palestinian songs in his collection as "the experiences and moods of lovers."30 The Song's use of elements taken from the repertoire of Near Eastern divinities and sacred marriages, fully ignored by Gerleman, was then convincingly described by H.-P. Muller as a "lyrical reproduction of the mythical" and thus integrated into a lyrical understanding of the Song."
But unless one is willing to read these literary-metaphorical expressions of the lovers' experiences and feelings of longing, pain, and
happiness as reports of actual concrete events, the assignment of a Sitz im
Lehen, in the form-critical sense, becomes exceedingly problematic, even
impossible. Love poems arise under all kinds of conditions; they are read,
recited, and sung under all kinds of conditions-whether for personal
pleasure in one's private chamber or for public recognition at a royal
festival. Most often, an individual poem does not tell its setting. The
search for the Sitz im Lehen needs to be modified; it makes sense only as a
search for the milieu that gave rise to such poetry (see pp. 1-4) and for the
origins of the literary forms and metaphors (see pp. 18-30).
These matters are important to understand if one is to interpret the poems of the Song properly. In my opinion, Krinetzki goes too far
when he says:
Whoever wants to understand the message of the Song of Songs correctly must first seek to comprehend its "erotic psychology," an introduction to which I have written in "Die erotische Psychologie des Hohen Liedes" in Theologische Quar- talschrift 150 (1970) 404-416, where I follow C. G. Jung and his methodology.... Fundamental is Jung's recognition that the Song of Songs is not about objective descriptions and experiences; rather it projects on another object one's own sensations of erection, of touch, of bodily organs. [To speak this way, one should say "sensations of orgasm" rather than "sensations of erection," because women, not only men, also sometimes wrote poetry in ancient Israel-Exod. 15:20-21; Judg. 5: I ; 1 Sam. 18:7.] Thus what one encounters here are not primarily concrete partners and concrete love but some archetypal (i.e., superindividual), phylogenetically conditioned notions of male and female, of Eros and Sexus, which exist in the speakers' unconscious and which are transferred onto the partner. (39-40)
The problem with this approach is that even before the actual texts are studied the reader already knows they are meant to evoke Jungian notions of animus and anima, of inhibition and integration. Such an approach comes very close to an allegorical interpretation that has to know in advance that the Song is about God (or Christ) and Israel (or the church) so these can then be discovered like Easter eggs among the various shrubs and flowers of the Song.
Does a Comprehensive Plan Underlie the Song of Songs?
Viewing the Song allegorically as a portrayal of the relationship of Yahweh to Israel or Christ to the church leads to the temptation to read the book as a continuous story. For example, the Aramaic translation (the Targum of the sixth/seventh century A.D.) is a narrative interpretation that reads the Song as a presentation of the history of God with his people from the Exodus to the time of Solomon.32
Because the Song (with the exception of 3:9-10d) consists totally of direct speech, it would seem more appropriate to understand it as drama; Origen was the first to do so. The players are Christ and his angels as Solomon and his companions and the church and the believers as the bride and her playmates (see notes 10 and 11, above). The drama theory enjoyed great popularity again in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Song was occasionally interpreted in analogy to the pastoral plays and singspiels beloved at that time. A particularly popular version saw a human triangle in the Song- Solomon was trying to win a simple but very beautiful maiden for his harem, while she wanted to remain faithful to her shepherd boyfriend. A. Hazan published an interpretation of this kind as late as 1936 under the promising title, Le Cantique des Cantiques enfin explique (Paris). According to Rudolph's apt caricature of Hazan, "Every time the king thinks he will get what he desires, the shepherd boy appears out of nowhere and foils his intentions; yet the king
accepts all this as calm as can be, persistently beginning again in the next
act to idolize the girl anew. This happens three times in a row! The alleged
triple parallelism, of which Hazan is very proud, is achieved only by the
insertion of invented verses and invented characters" (97; see his note
10).
In order to find the cultic drama he seeks in the Song, Schmokel
freehandedly rearranges the poems completely (45-47). For example:
Scene One
[image: ]
The result has little to do with the Song which has been demolished and
its pieces put together in a new mosaic made to match a preconceived
sketch. This seductive approach can produce surprising effects. It is a
creative art (collage) but hardly exegesis.
In its traditional form, the Song itself offers no basis for a dramatic
interpretation. Two or three poems are sometimes arranged in a kind of
running continuity (e.g., 5:2-8; 5:9-16; 6:1-3), but the collector or redactor apparently has no interest in anything larger than such small units.
This fact
puts an end to the whole phantom of a dramatic reading. A drama needs continuity and an ending. In a drama of love, like the Song of Songs, the only
appropriate ending would be that, after all the intervening circumstances, the guy
(using the vernacular) finally gets the girl. But in the Song, on the one hand, they
come together much too quickly (even if one ignores earlier passages, the physical
union is as clear as can be at the end of chapter 4); on the other hand, this union
still seems far away in chapter 7 and at the beginning of chapter 8. (Rudolph, 97)
But even if the content of the Song is not continuous, might it not
be possible to find a formal scheme of composition? It is evident to every
reader of the Song that some elements turn up repeatedly-catchwords,
striking similes and metaphors, even whole sentences and brief poetic
units. Although some forms of address are concentrated in one part of the
Song (e.g., "sister" and "bride" in 4:8-5:2), others are distributed more
or less evenly throughout (e.g., "my love" [fem.] in 1:9, 15; 2:10, 13; 4:1,
7; 5:2; 6:4). Some phrases occur twice (e.g., "My beloved is mine and I am
his; he pastures his flock among the lotus flowers"-2:16 and 6:3) or even
three times (e.g., the entreaty to the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up
love-2:7; 3:5; 8:4). The latter formula is twice connected with another to
make a brief poem (2:6-7 and 8:3-4). Even longer units are repeated-not
verbatim but with clearly recognizable similarity-e.g., an experience in
the night (3:1-5; 5:2-8) or the detailed description of the woman (4:1-7;
7:1-5 [2-6]). These factors have led to the division of the Song into two parts (1:2-5:1 and 5:2-8:14). J. Cheryl Exum subdivided these further, attempting to identify six units (1:2-2:2; 2:7-3:5; 3:6-5:1; 5:2-6:3; 6:4-8:3; 8:4-14).33 W. H. Shea modified these six divisions slightly (1:2-2:2; 2:3-17; 3:1-4, 16; 5:1-7, 10; 7:10 [11]-8:5; 8:6-14), thinking he could identify a chiastic structure (see the commentary on 5:16cd).34 For example, he points to the occurrence of "apple tree" at the beginning of his second section and at the end of the next-to-last section (2:3; 8:5). Unfortunately, this analysis requires breaking up a clear poetic unity (2:1-3); moreover, even though the two appearances of "apple tree" jump out at the reader, others of his so-called matches are much less clear or simply invented (e.g., he sees a connection between 1:8 and 8:11 because both flock and vineyard supposedly belong to Solomon, even though the text never claims that the flock is Solomon's). Chiasms may well have played a role in the structure of various parts of the Song, but I doubt that they played a role for the whole collection. Without claiming such a rigorous structure, Krinetzki (12-19) also finds six groups of songs, although he divides them somewhat differently than Shea (1:2-2:6; 2:716; 2:17-3:5; 3:6-6:3; 6:4-8:3; 8:4-14).
Along with Rudolph (97-98), Gerleman (who never considers overall composition), and Pope (40-54), I find no overall formal structure. Several smaller collections of poetry apparently preceded the Song in its present form (as with Psalms and Proverbs). I think this view best explains the existence of doublets in the book. Several different sayings are repeated in Proverbs (e.g., 22:13 and 26:13), as are several poems or parts of poems in Psalms (e.g., Ps. 14 = Ps. 53; 70 = 40:13-17 [14-18]). The collector or redactor of the Song appears to have drawn together poems that already existed, individually and in small groups, partly on the basis of a simple catchword principle and partly on the basis of content (see the introductions to the individual poems in the commentary). It is quite possible that he supplemented some poems with "appropriate" verses taken from others, a process that one can see in the Greek translation. (The words "I called him, but he gave no answer" from 5:6 are found in the Greek version, but not in the Hebrew, also after 3:1 c.) Perhaps the composer or redactor took some songs directly from the oral tradition, where they might have circulated in different versions.
Thanks to its large number of repeated formulas and metaphors, the Song has seemed to many interpreters to be, if not a unified structure, at least the work of a single author.35 But this impression of a unified pattern comes, I think, not so much from single authorship as from the secondary enrichment of the poems through formulas and verses from other songs (as just mentioned) and from the use of conventional language (for more on this point see pp. 25-30).
Formal Elements and Categories
Most recent major commentators (e.g., Rudolph, Gerleman, Pope, Krinetzki) agree that the Song consists of a collection of songs, even though Pope declines to delineate these songs and simply comments on the whole book, verse by verse.
The redactional work already described-enriching individual poems with elements from other poems and occasionally making artificial connections between two poems-makes it impossible to define the limits of the individual poems in every case. But this point dare not obscure the broad consensus that does exist among commentators. It is a cheap shot to use extreme positions or minor inevitable divergences to proclaim quickly the bankruptcy of biblical scholarship. True, the Masoretic division of the Hebrew Bible makes 19 poems of this material, while Herder has 20, Rudolph 30, Gerleman 34, Keel 42, and Krinetzki 52; but that discrepancy is because Krinetzki consciously proceeds from the smallest definable units, while Herder and, to a lesser degree, Rudolph accept the larger units created by the redactor. While all six systems do not have the same number of units, the divisions do, as a rule, come at the same places:
[image: ]
In 1935 F. Horst defined literary categories for the original songs, using criteria related to both form and content.16 Horst distinguished among songs of admiration (e.g., 1:15-17; 7:6-9 [7-10]), comparisons and allegories (e.g., 1:13-14), descriptive songs-also named with the Arabic word waz/'(e.g., 4:1-7), songs of desire (e.g., 2:14), and descriptions of an experience (e.g., 3:1-4); he also includes the less frequent categories of self-description (1:5-6; 8:8-10), vaunt song (6:8-9; 8:1 1-12), and jest (1:78). Pope, who includes the definitions of these eight categories (66-69)as he includes so much else in the lengthy introduction to his com mentary-notes somewhat ironically: "The application of form criticism
to the Song of Songs has been attempted only rarely and without spectacular results." Krinetzki too reports these eight categories and adds
three more: the song of entreaty (by which he means the refrain in 2:7;
3:5; 8:4), the call to joy (3:1 Oe- 11; 5:1 ef), and the dialogue-"a creation of
the redactor" (e.g., 4:16-5:1 d). Krinetzki indicates the literary category
of every single poem. This rather joyless task leads to an occasional
inconsistency. For example, he calls Cant. 4:8 both a song of admiration
(20) and a descriptive song (139). At best, one can scarcely differentiate
between the two categories. Even the titles betray the use of criteria from
different areas: admiration, like desire, is a state of mind, whereas description and self-description are formal processes. No one could argue
that the descriptions in 4:1-7 or 7:1-5 (2-6) do not convey admiration.
What is the difference between the song of admiration in 7:6-9 (7-10) and
the descriptive song in 4:1-7? Horst identifies two parts of the song of
admiration: the first part describes a person's beauty, the second the
effects of such beauty, i.e., "either the wish or longing for union with the
beloved or the joy over such union" (177). But a text that he clearly labels
a descriptive song (4:1-7) contains these words:
[image: ]
Here mere description has been left behind; here is precisely "the wish or
longing for union with the beloved or the joy over such union" that is
supposed to be specific to the song of admiration and ought not be found
in a descriptive song.
Instead of labeling the poems with such questionable titles, I have
as a rule preferred to begin the commentary on each song by stating the
arguments from form and content that have led to its separation from the
previous unit and by naming the elements of form and content that
characterize the song thus delineated.
The following structure occurs frequently, in all possible variations: the woman (or less often the man) is described as beautiful and
desirable (in nominal clauses or perfect verbs), and then the wish for
contact with her (or him) is expressed (in nominal clauses, imperfect
forms, imperatives, etc.). Sometimes the first (indicative) section is fully
developed and the second only intimated; sometimes the first section is
brief, the second developed at length. The order is occasionally reversed:
a wish is expressed, using imperatives or imperfects (1:2a; 2:15ab; 8:6ab),
and then reasons are given, in nominal clauses or similar forms (1:2b;
2:15d; 8:6cd).
This structure, which characterizes most songs in the book, leads
to the conclusion that the basic mood of the songs is a wish for change, a
longing for union with the beloved. This basic mood also gives rise to the
fictitious experiences reported in the book (see the commentary on 3:15).
If one examines the songs for content rather than form, one would have to call almost all of them songs of desire. The peculiarity of the Song in this regard becomes clear only in contrast to Arab or classical poetry, where the primary element is the lover's lament, bemoaning the loss of the partner. Cant. 5:2-7 may once have been such a lament, but now the redactor has placed it in a new context, giving it a positive outcome. If only traces of the lover's lament remain in the Song, the repetitive litanies common to the ritual of the Sumerian sacred marriage are lacking altogether."
In contrast, the love songs of the four ancient Egyptian collections take the same forms as the biblical love songs. Like the biblical songs, the Egyptian counterparts are consistently cast in direct speech. Again, like the biblical songs, the Egyptian ones often use the indicative to describe a condition that gives rise to a wish-although in the Egyptian songs the impetus is more often the speaker's own love rather than the beauty of the beloved, the latter being more typical of the Song. For example:
[image: ]
[image: ]
In addition, the ancient Egyptian love songs frequently include pure wishing songs, introduced with the formula "If only ...... 19
Most important, the ancient Egyptian love songs also contain what I regard as the most notable element of the Song: the listing of different parts of the body, each described by an adjective, a simile, or a metaphor (cf. 4:1-7; 5:9-16; 7:1-5 [2-6]):
[image: ]
[image: ]
[image: ]
The portion of the similar song found on the relief in figure 121 is approximately contemporary with the previous song, dated in the twelfth century B.C.:
[image: ]
A document from the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (712-664 B.C.)-when Egypt was ruled by the Nubian ruler with whom Hezekiah made an alliance against the Assyrians-shows that ancient Egyptian love poetry in general and this form of it in particular were still thoroughly alive in the eighth/seventh century B.c.:
[image: ]
This form from ancient Egyptian love poetry, praising bodily features, may have survived up to Greek and Roman times. The JudeoHellenistic romance, Joseph and Aseneth, probably originating in Alexandria, contains a colorful description of Aseneth, perhaps combining Egyptian and Jewish material: "[Her face] was like the sun and her eyes (were) like a rising morning star, and her cheeks like fields of the Most High, and on her cheeks (there was) red (color) like a son of man's blood, and her lips (were) like a rose of life coming out of its foliage, and her teeth like fighting men lined up for a fight, and the hair of her head (was) like a vine in the paradise of God prospering in its fruits, and her neck like an all-variegated cypress, and her breasts (were) like the mountains of the Most High God."42 This description is much more magnificent than the brief wazf in the Qumran Genesis Apocryphon (20:1-8), which is the only residue of this form in postbiblical Jewish literature (Pope, 55).
Excursus: The Source of the Praise of Bodily Features in the Descriptive Songs
This unique way of presenting a person can be traced back to the Egyptian literature of the third millennium B.c. The oldest examples come from the Pyramid Texts, a large collection of utterances meant to assist the dead king's entrance into the world of the gods. It is not sufficient to make the king into a god; he is to become the god. In the most ancient form of this apotheosis, the king devours all the other gods, thereby appropriating for himself their powers. According to Pyramid Text 27374 (§§ 400, 404):
[image: ]
In contrast to this account, the deification of the various bodily features is a much more seemly form of the royal apotheosis. Pyramid Text 215 (§§ 148-49) reads:
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Whereas nine parts of the body are mentioned in this text, Utterance 539 (§§ 1303-15) contains twenty-six. The comparisons are frequently based on the similar functions of the particular bodily features and the god with which they are identified; for example: "My tongue is the pilot in charge of the Bark of Righteousness," or: "My phallus is Apis (the bull)."43
Originally reserved for the king, these texts were democratized following the collapse of the Old Kingdom. The literary form deifying bodily features is then found in the Book of the Dead (which in principle is applicable to anyone); it was in use at the time of the New Kingdom (1540-1075 a.c.) and occasionally even later. In addition to the form known in the Pyramid Texts, which also appears, for example, in Utterance 42 of the Book of the Dead, one also finds an utterance (no. 172) on a papyrus of the Eighteenth Dynasty (1540-1292 B.c.) in which some parts of the body are, according to the tradition, identified with a god, but others are identified with precious materials (the latter is also characteristic of the love poems): "Your beauty is that of a calm pool.... Your head, 0 my lord, is adorned with the tress of a woman of Asia; your face is brighter than the Mansion of the Moon; your upper part is lapis-lazuli; your hair is blacker than all the doors of the Netherworld on the day of darkness.... Your lungs are Nephthys; your face is Hapi and his flood. ... Your gullet is Anubis; your body is extended with gold; your breasts are eggs of cornelian which Horus has inlaid with lapis-lazuli; your arms glitter with faience."44
As early as the Middle Kingdom, the form was used for the living as well as the dead. In an incantation for the protection of a small child, each of the child's members is identified with a deity:
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If human beings can use this pattern to become divine, indeed to become the god, making them immortal or at least keeping them healthy, the gods can also use it to become the cosmos itself. A hymn to Amon proclaims:
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A rather isolated Akkadian hymn to Ninurta (after 1200 B.C.) uses this form to reconcile the claim of universal power by one single god and the existence of many gods:
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As with the deification of bodily features in Egyptian texts, here too one finds a correspondence between the particular part of the body and the specific power of the god with whom it is identified. For example, the ears, which hear, are equated with the wise and reserved Ea and his wife. Apart from this example, the form is scarcely found in Mesopotamia. As far as I can tell, it played no role in the cultic poetry or in the less frequent profane poetry (cf. Pope, 70).
Formal Elements and Categories: Conclusion
I have cited so many examples of this type of description (though many more Egyptian texts would be available) because it shows, first, that one of the forms typical of the Song is clearly of Egyptian origin. The biblical and Egyptian love songs are similar in more than content (see pp. 27-30). Second, one can see clearly that this form was originally used in the cult and then later employed for profane purposes. The secondary profane use does not imply that the Song contains disguised cultic texts (cf. pp. 12-15), but it does mean one has the right and the duty to seek a possible cultic-mythological origin behind its motifs, especially when these have a particularly lofty tone (e.g., 4:8). Third, the cultic origin of the form affords direct insight into its ability to mediate between the one and the many-a function that continues in the Song, even though there it is less clear and unambiguous. One of the central experiences of love is the lover's tendency to see all things beautiful and desirable as reminders of the beloved, finding in her or him their unity and meaning. The beloved gives the world not only a new radiance but also a meaningful center; yet, at the same time, the beloved becomes the lover's whole world. The very form of the wazf which arises from the songs exalting the bodily features, is appropriate to take up this experience and give it shape. This appropriateness may well be the reason the form continues into modern times.
The form plays a prominent role in modern Arab love poetry. Each of the many collections contains dozens of examples; one must suffice here:
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Because of its richness the form has its adherents not only in the East, but also in Europe. Goethe ingeniously transforms it in his "West-Eastern Divan":
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R. M. Rilke used the same form, then almost five thousand years old, in his poem "Geburt der Venus"; the pattern provides a ready structure for the simple writer, while challenging the subtle poet to transform and enrich it.
Fourth, and finally, this ancient structure teaches that the point of comparison between the receiver of meaning (the part of the body) and the lender of meaning (a divinity, a precious material, a plant, an animal, etc.) is only rarely a matter of shape or form (where modern Westerners generally seek such comparisons); more often the similarity has to do with color, value, or some dynamic quality. But that point leads to the next section.
Similes, Metaphors, Roles, and Situations
These descriptions of the beloved's body string together a variety of motifs. By "motif" here I mean primarily similes ("Your eyes are like doves"), metaphors ("Your eyes are doves"-without the connecting particle), and the description of the beloved in various guises, roles, and caricatures (as king, shepherd, sister) and in typical situations (all admire the beloved, love under the trees). The proper understanding of these motifs remains one of the chief difficulties in dealing with the Song. Modern Westerners do not immediately grasp what the poet had in mind when he compares the hair with a flock of goats or with grapes or lapis lazuli. Having devoted a preliminary study to this problem,50 I can briefly summarize the results here.
Many words have a metaphorical sense in addition to their primary meaning. When one says, "The hunter shot a fox," the word "fox"
simply means a particular animal; but when one says of another person,
"He's a fox!" one singles out just one (alleged) aspect of the fox: a slyness
or cunning that engenders mistrust. The (sly) person is the receiver of
meaning in this metaphor. Qualifying that person as "fox" makes him
understood in a particular way. The metaphorical fox is the lender of
meaning. The aspect (of the fox) envisaged by the metaphor is the third
element (the tertium comparationis), the point of comparison. The point
of comparison in the fox metaphor is clear today. But can one assume
without question that the fox metaphor means the same thing in Cant.
2:15 that it means to modern Westerners? "Fox" is a complex notion
(color, shape, behavior) from which different cultures may select different
aspects. Ancient Egyptian portrayals suggest that the foxes in Cant. 2:15
have more to do with a never-satisfied sexual appetite than with slyness
(Luke 13:32?). One must also recognize that a simile or metaphor, functioning as a model, can evoke several aspects at the same time. Thus the
palm, as a model of a desirable woman (Cant. 7:7 [8]), may signify at the
same time the aspects of magnificent appearance, tall and slender growth,
abundant fruit, and sweetness.
One can determine which aspects a particular culture perceives in
a given phenomenon only by examining as fully as possible the pertinent
documents from that culture. The process is easier the more a culture
lives from conventions and traditions, which was much more the case in
the ancient Near East than it is today. Whereas today every would-be
poet seeks as quickly as possible to develop a unique, original, and
unmistakable style, using his or her own similes and metaphors (which
often remain indecipherable in this private usage), writers in the ancient
Near East often used the same figurative language over millennia; the art
was to employ this language in new ways, to enrich it with additions, and
to renew and keep alive the traditional material without drawing great
attention to oneself.
Before I begin to shed light on the lender of meaning in these
similes or metaphors-which is generally seen as the only task of the
exegete in this regard-it is always advantageous first to determine which
aspects of the receiver of meaning were important in OT culture.
Three times the Song compares eyes to doves. Interpreters have
frequently found the point of comparison in the form of the eyes (Gerleman). Western languages often use parts of the body in connection with
shapes: the "arm" of the sea, the "nose" of a ship, or the "neck" of the
bottle. Hebrew, however, uses "arm" in connection with strength, "nose"
with snorting or anger, "neck" with stretching or pride (cf. Ps. 75:5 [6];
Job 15:25-26), "eye" with twinkling or sparkling, "heart" with reflection
or thought, etc. This characteristic is of fundamental importance when
interpreting the descriptions of bodily features. To operate unreflectively
with the notion that the same aspects are important in Hebrew usage that
would be important in modern English when referring to a bodily feature
is to risk failure from the outset (see, e.g., the commentary on Cant. 4:5).
A concentric circle model is useful in seeking which aspects of a
phenomenon are important to a particular culture, both for the lender of
meaning and for the receiver of meaning in comparative speech. The first
and smallest circle is the immediate literary context. When Cant. 5:11
refers to the beloved's locks as "black as a raven," the envisaged aspect is
clearly described by the adjective "black." But such unequivocal references occur only rarely in the Song; most often they are lacking, as in
4:4a: "Your neck is like the tower of David." The amplification, "on it
hang a thousand bucklers," implies strength, an interpretation that is
confirmed when one expands to the next concentric circle, the whole
Song. In 8:10 the tower analogy occurs again: "I was a wall, and my
breasts were like towers." The context makes clear that "towers" do not
signify something tall and slender (which was seldom the case in the
ancient Near East) but something strong, unapproachable, proud. This
idea is shared also by the receiver of meaning in the comparison, the
neck. To "speak with neck" in Hebrew is to speak with pride (p. 26).
After using this method to establish the meaning of a simile or
metaphor in a particular place, one must guard against the notion that
this meaning can mechanically be plugged in anywhere the same catchword appears. When 5:13 equates the beloved's cheeks with "towers" of
ointments (see the commentary), the new context emphasizes a different
aspect of tower than strength or valor.
If neither the immediate context nor the larger circle of the Song
offers clues to the understanding of a particular motif, the next move
(with the aid of a concordance or lexicon) is to the whole OT. Most
productive are texts that, like the Song, speak of things like the relations
between men and women and the joys of love-and not only those texts
that do so positively (e.g., Genesis 2; Psalm 45; Prov. 5:18-20) but also
those that view such things critically and with mistrust (cf., e.g., Prov.
7:17 with Cant. 4:14 and 1:13; Isa. 3:16 with Cant. 4:9; Hos. 4:13 with
Cant. 1:16-17). The wisdom teachers and prophets often viewed the
erotic realm differently than the poets of the Song.
When one can find no further help from the OT-as in the case of
eyes as doves, or breasts as "twins of a gazelle that feed among the
[lotuses]," or the beloved as one who lingers in Lebanon among lions and
leopards-then one draws a wider circle, encompassing the land where
the Song originated (see the map on p. 36). But another trap awaits here.
The natural world has innumerable aspects, but culture is interested in
only a few of them. The Song is a cultural product; its interpretation
depends more on an understanding of culture than of nature. The dependence of culture on natural surroundings is usually much less than the
layperson would be inclined to believe. To understand the Song it is
much more important to study archaeological findings than to study the
landscape-above all, one should study the pictorial images in seals,
amulets, ivories, and other valuables with which the well-to-do people
who wrote the Song were daily surrounded. Here one finds gazelles and
lotus flowers, doves and lions in the context of art and luxury for which
erotica has always had a special affinity.
Because Israel/Palestine was small and hardly well-off, the examples of skilled craftsmanship found there are often foreign, imported more or less equally from Egypt and from Syria/Mesopotamia (but sometimes also from the west, e.g., Cypress). When Gerleman limits his search for parallels to the Song's motifs to Egypt, and Pope looks chiefly toward Syria and Mesopotamia (or even India), and Kramer consults only Sumerian texts, none of these does justice either to Palestine/Israel's physical situation (between the two cultural spheres of Egypt and Mesopotamia) or to its openness to the Mediterranean islands.
Images uncovered by archaeology in Palestine/Israel show that its iconography portrayed, for example, the regenerative aspect of the lotus or the distancing effect created by a lion escort. At the same time, the existence of these pictorial records makes it seem likely that not only foreign iconography but also foreign love poems were imported, thus influencing Hebrew love songs-even though up to now archaeology has found no trace of such songs. "Foreign women," especially at court, may have played a key role in this enterprise. As previously demonstrated in the discussion of the Song's origins and forms (recall especially the descriptions of the body), the similarities to Egyptian love lyrics are often astonishing, at least for the period 1300-700 B.c. The role of metaphors and similes referring to lotuses (see the commentary on 2:1 ff.; 4:5; 5:13; 7:2 [3]), pomegranates (commentary on 7:13 [14]), gazelles-(2:9), amulets (1: 13-14), and seals (8:6) in the Egyptian lyrics is similar to their role in the Song. One also finds situations like love under the trees (see the commentary on 2:4-5) and the roles of shepherd, sister, and mother in the Egyptian material.
Comparisons with the Near East are made difficult by the fact that no collection of love songs comparable to the Song or to the Egyptian collections has been found in Phoenicia, Canaan, or Assyria. The only large collection from Mesopotamia-the Sumerian love songs of the third or early second millennium B.c.-is not only separated by great time and distance but also differentiated from the Song by a sometimes clearly marked Sitz im Leben (sacred marriage) and by form (addresses in litany style).
Most significantly, the Sumerian love songs use a totally different style. Instead of the rich and colorful images of the Song, the Sumerian poems employ a limited number of stereotypical metaphors (erotic pleasure as a mixed drink or honey, the pubic area as a field, coitus as plowing, etc.).51 Moreover, these poems include many explicit references (tongue kissing, vulva, ejaculation, etc.)S2 of a kind lacking in the Song. Ceremonial intercourse in the Sumerian texts has a clear purpose: to promote prosperity in all realms of natural and political life.53 The Song knows no such thing. The whole atmosphere is therefore very different (though they have some commonalities; see the commentary on 2:3). A
direct connection between the Song and these Sumerian texts is out of the
question. But Sumerian literature had a strong, demonstrable influence
on Akkadian and ancient Syrian literature. No collection of love songs
has survived from this area, but that does not mean that none existed.
That many of the Song's motifs come from the Near East is clear from the
pictorial evidence, if not from written sources. For example, the dove as a
messenger of love is never found in Egypt, but it appears frequently in
Near Eastern iconography. The same can be said for the goddess on the
mountain accompanied by lions and leopards (see the commentary on
4:8).
Given the lack of a significant collection of Northwest Semitic love songs to compare to the Song, one might decide to turn to the early Greek loves songs (e.g., by Sappho); important cultural contacts existed between Greece and the Levant from the eighth/seventh century B.C.54 Likewise, the Arab love songs of nineteenth-century Palestine may have some connection (though certainly difficult to determine) to the metaphorical language of the ancient Near East (see note 48 for the texts). But to use these late sources to try to prove a secular origin for one of the Song's motifs would be to put the cart before the horse (see the commentary on 7:7 [8]).
This issue serves to introduce the final point of this section. The discussion of "Form" (pp. 18-22) showed how the description of bodily features was taken over from the realm of cult and ritual (deification of the dead, hymns) into the realm of love songs. Similarly, several of the book's motifs-for example, those used to represent and make tangible such characteristics as the beloved's distant majesty or regenerative power or value-seem to originate in the sphere of the gods. In all ages and all places, lovers have experienced the value and significance of the beloved as divine and have attempted to express the partner's value by portraying him or her as a god or goddess. This portrayal has been labeled "Gotter- verkleidung, " "Gottertravestie, " "theomorphism," or "divine fiction." This tendency caused little trouble for polytheistic religions, where the border between the divine and the human is less clear than in monotheistic religions. In one Egyptian love song, the beloved is addressed simply as "My god, my lotus."55 The poem by Ricarda Huch, quoted in the commentary to 5:lcd, shows that this view is still possible in a monotheistic milieu (cf. also Psalm 45). Otherwise, in Christian areas the beloved is often called an "angel," and in Muslim areas a "virgin of paradise." The Song never directly relates the man or woman to the divine sphere in this way; whatever numinous aura they are given comes only through the attributes with which they are described. In the concluding section I consider the relationship between the characters of the Song (provided with numinous splendor) and the God of Israel, and the
theological relevance of this relationship for the Song.
The Song of Songs and Yahwism
A theological interpretation of the Song requires delicate balance. This point is already obvious from the fact that many situations that the Song views as expressions of heavenly bliss for the lovers are seen quite differently by the wisdom teachers and prophets; with just a slight shift in accent and nuance, they condemn the same situations.
Love as an Elemental Power
While 1: 16-17 announces the desire to express love under cedars and pines (cf. also 7:11-12 [12-13]), Hosea polemicizes against the daughters who "play the whore" in the shadow of oaks and terebinths and against the brides who commit adultery there; Yahweh declines to punish them only because the men are doing the same thing (thereby demonstrating an impartiality that is remarkable even today-Hos. 4:13-14). One might object that the one case involves the innocent love of a bridal couple while the other is part of the Baal cult, but such distinctions arise only from a tendentious interpretation of both texts. The prophetic text is already polemical, rigorously interpreting the practice it condemns from only one perspective; but one is left to wonder whether the practice intended in Cant. 1:16-17 would not also have fallen under the prophetic verdict.
The Song speaks of the woman as one who holds her head high (4:4; 7:4a [5a]), who throws seductive glances (1:15; 4:1, 9; 5:12; 6:5), and who is richly bejeweled (1:10-1 1). Isaiah polemicizes against the haughty daughters of Zion who walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, their jewelry jingling (Isa. 3:16).
The woman in the Song wanders through the streets by night, seeking her lover (3:1-5; 5:2-8); she imagines kissing him when they meet. The wisdom teacher grimly describes how the adulteress seeks a lover on the streets at night and how she seizes and kisses him when she finds him (Prov. 7:6-13). Again, one might object that the one case involves a bride with the purest of intentions seeking her bridegroom with all her heart and soul, while the other involves a common adulteress. But the night watchmen of Cant. 5:7 apparently have trouble making such clean distinctions; they beat and wound the poor "bride."
Thus it is no surprise that the legally rigorous rabbis had trouble with the Song. According to a gloss to the Mishnah tractate Pirqe Abot, which has been handed down anonymously and may therefore be quite old: "Originally, it is said, Proverbs, Song and Songs, and Ecclesiastes were suppressed; for since they were held to be mere parables and not part of the Holy Writings, (the religious authorities) arose and suppressed them; (and so they remained) until the men of Hezekiah [or `the men of the Great Assembly'] came and interpreted them."56 The "men of the Great Assembly" are a fiction of Pharisaic erudition, invented to bridge the gap between prophecy and Pharisaic Judaism. This invention gives insight into the beginnings of that movement, and the tradition shows that there was a problem regarding the public use of the Song and its place among the Holy Writings (which were read in public). The well-known discussion in the Mishnah tractate Yadayim, whether the Song "imparts uncleanness to the hands,"57 does not appear to be a question about canonicity but about public reading (cf. Rudolph, 78). In a community more and more defined by its liturgical life, no one knew what to do with the Song-at least not until the advent of the escape into allegory, which made a book of questionable content into the holiest of all holy books. The latter was the judgment of Rabbi Agiba (died 135 A.D.) in the section of the Mishnah tractate Yadayim just cited. Yet allegorizing is nothing other than an elegant way of despising the text; like a pack mule, the book is laden with every conceivable meaning, but in the process its own voice and its own meaning are suppressed. Nevertheless, as the history of the allegorical interpretation demonstrated (see pp. 5-11), even such a radical immunization strategy could not prevent the virulent original sense of the Song from breaking out again and again.
Neither the totalitarian alteration of the Song's theological personality imposed by an allegorical reading nor the moralistic attempt to
domesticate and limit its interest to ordinary courtship and marriage has
finally been able to obscure the fact that the Song describes love as an
elemental power, comparable to death (8:6-7), and having little to do
with morality and theology.
When I say "love,; -'-I do not mean a relationship limited to sexual
gratification. The basis of love in the Song is not a vague genital lust but
great admiration of the beloved partner, who seems inapproachable in
his or her radiance-distant on inaccessible mountains, hidden in locked
gardens, painfully longed for and sought. The lovers mutually experience
one another as so beautiful, so radiant, so magnificent that every discovery, every approach, every possession of the other can be experienced
only as unfathomable gift, never taken for granted.
The wisdom literature gave an explicitly theological interpretation
to this experience: "House and wealth are inherited from parents, / but a
prudent wife is from the Lord" (Prov. 19:14; cf. 18:22). The loving
encounter in Genesis 2 is described quite similarly to the Song. The
encounter with the woman, whom the man recognizes as one profoundly
like himself, emphasizes his distress and limitation in being alone. Adam
greets Eve with a formula stating the relationship: "This at last is bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh; / this one shall be called Woman [nmx], for
out of Man [V,x] this one was taken" (Gen. 2:23). The happy experience
of finding another person whom one admires and to whom one also feels
profoundly related ("bone of my bones") is expressed in the love songs
through the address "sister" or "brother" (see the commentary on 4:9).
The feeling of belonging and the happiness that each gives the
other push the existing social barriers and differences in rank between
man and woman into the background. Love presses toward paradise.
Nowhere in the OT is the equality of the sexes-a precondition for
overcoming loneliness and the basis for mutual solidarity-as real as in
the Song. Nowhere is the value of the single human being (the proverbial
"individual") so convincingly celebrated.
When a man and woman come into this kind of relationship, it
pushes them together with elemental force. They feel safe (2:3), functioning as amulets or talismans for one another (1:13-14); their union is
seen as providential and dare not be disturbed (2:6-7; 8:3-4). The Song
assumes that only one person can be this kind of partner for the other
(2:1-3:6, 8-9), even though this conviction, expounded with great enthusiasm, is ironically challenged by the "daughters of Jerusalem" (cf.
5:9). Yet the Song does not say that such a relationship will last forever.
If love is not a mere animal impulse in the Song, it is even less a
nonphysical spiritual behavior, which regards human beings as pseudoangels and arrogantly denigrates all the good things we have in common
with the animals as mere "fleshly lust." Every human pleasure combines
physical, emotional, and spiritual powers, stimulating each of these
equally. The Song simply takes such a view for granted; it does not seem
to enter into a deliberate argument with Platonic or Hellenistic tendencies (contra Krinetzki, 29).
Astonishingly, just as the Song sovereignly ignores any tendency to
deny the body, it also ignores the claims of society that often come into
conflict with spontaneous expressions of love. In the OT world, society's
interests are expressed primarily in the patriarchal family, the institution
of marriage, and the production of offspring. But the Song simply has
nothing to do with such things. Its partiality toward journeys into uninhabited areas (cf., e.g., 7:11-12 [12-13]) derives from the difficulties it
encounters when it tries to find room within society for spontaneity and
individuality. Krinetzki betrays an idealistic notion of "law": "Wherever
two people truly love one another, even without the law they fulfill its
demands by their inner urgency" (43). This unrealistic perspective has
little to do with the OT.
The Theological Relevance of Love as an Elemental Force
The ancient world often regarded love-an elemental force as strong as
death-as a divine power in the midst of other conflicting divine powers.
At first glance, one finds no such exaggerated notions in the Song. Gerleman perceives this lack as its great theological achievement:
What is so astonishing is that the figures in the Song of Songs live in a completely
desacralized and demythicized secular world and that the events are thoroughly
characterized by what is uniquely human. Any theological evaluation must take
this fact seriously rather than trying somehow to detour around it. There is great
theological relevance precisely in this purely negative reality, in the lack of any
deification of sexuality. Israel's opposition to the mythically satiated atmosphere of its environment is nowhere more clearly and simply expressed. To portray an area of life that the neighboring religions regarded as a sacral mystery and a divine event in a fully demythologized form is a theological achievement of greatest significance. The love poems of the Song of Songs confidently presuppose that Yahwism is incompatible with a divinization of sex. Yahweh stood "beyond the polarity of sex."" In Israel, sexual love could be described only in an atmosphere of spiritualized secularity, as one finds it in the Song of Songs.
This desacralized and demythicized view of erotic love is strongly reminiscent of the Old Testament's understanding of death. Yahwism has very little to say about the phenomenon of death itself. Israel never tried "to make herself ideologically or mythologically lord of death."19 It is noteworthy that in Israel there was no attempt to portray sexuality and death mythologically, to objectify or give autonomy to the great primal powers of nature. (84-85)
But is it appropriate to ascribe such a passionately antimytho- logical role to the Song? Does not this ascription give a prophetic edge to a book from the wisdom tradition, when wisdom's rational perspective has no use for the kind of mythology the prophets opposed? The distinction between the profane and the holy certainly plays an important role in the Israelite cult (Ezek. 22:26). The cult distinguishes between that which is appropriate to and belongs to Yahweh and that which remains for human use. But that distinction has no meaning in the wisdom literature. Wisdom is interested in the whole world as the work of God, as God's creation; and "All the works of the Lord are very good" (Sir. 39:16). There is neither holy nor profane. When Gerleman describes the Song as "profane," he can only mean to separate it from things like sacred marriages observed cultically in temples or sacred prostitution. Yahweh would have nothing to do with sexuality in such arenas. But simply as part of the wisdom literature the Song has nothing in common with this world of thought.
Or perhaps Gerleman uses "profane" to mean primarily "not pious." After all, the literature most like the Hebrew love songs-the ancient Egyptian love songs-also show scarcely a trace of a mythologizing of love; but they do introduce Hathor ("the Golden One") as the protector and patron of love. The woman wishes to be commended to her beloved by "the Golden One of women" (the goddess). The man begs Hathor to deliver his beloved to him, and he makes vows to the goddess. Whoever seeks the love of a beloved does so at the bidding of "the Golden One."60 Another deity is occasionally chosen to be the patron of love, as in the petition, "may Armin give me what I have found for all eternity."61
Such petitions and prayers, if addressed to Yahweh, would seem quite appropriate in the OT. Yahweh ordained that the man cleave more firmly to his wife than to his parents (Gen. 2:24). A prudent wife is Yahweh's gift (Prov. 18:22; 19:14). But it would be clearly contrary to the
direction of the OT to pray to Yahweh (as one would to Hathor) for
success in love without specific reference to marriage and to the blessing
of offspring (Tob. 8:7). Thus, one is inclined to agree at least in part with
Gerleman.
The Song is in fact less pious than the Egyptian poems. It does not mention God at all (see the commentary on 8:6). It has been compared in this regard to the little book of Esther and to I Maccabees, which at first glance seem to do the same. But at decisive moments, Esther uses a passive construction that clearly refers to God (4:14), and 1 Maccabees simply paraphrases God with "Heaven"-e.g., "strength comes from Heaven" (3:18-19, 50, 60, etc.). Do the lovers in the Song also have a secret relationship with Yahweh, or are they really left totally to themselves?
In Cant. 2:7 and 3:5 the women of Jerusalem are adjured not to disturb love and its pleasures. Such admonitions are generally made in the name of a deity; the Song refers instead to gazelles and does-animals related to the goddess (see the commentary on 2:7 and 3:5). The omission of the animals in the third occurrence of this exhortation (8:4) indicates some discomfort with their presence. But Yahweh's antipathy to sexuality in the cultic-mythic arena was apparently so strong that it was not possible to call on him as love's protector even in this non-mythical context.
In addition to the hidden reference to taking refuge in the goddess found in this oath taken in the name of gazelles and does, the Song includes texts that move toward a personification of "Love" (cf. 2:4b; 8:6c). According to Prov. 8:30-31,62 "Wisdom," Yahweh's delight, is his semiautonomous helper in the formation of the world, just as the chaos monsters are his semiautonomous opponents (cf. Job 40-41). Similarly, Christians in the Middle Ages could not comprehend the world without reference to a somewhat autonomous "Love"; they created the iridescent figure of the medieval "Venus" for that purpose.
Finally one must look at the figure of Solomon. His portrayal is the reason Krinetzki says it would be wrong "to speak of the Song of Songs as a profane love song in the modern sense. It is simply impossible in Israel to conjure up David (4:4) or Solomon (1:5; 3:7, 9, 11; 8:11, 12) or to call to mind the "mighty men of Israel" (3:7) or Israel's hosts (6:4, 10) or Jerusalem (1:5; 2:7; 3:5, 10; 5:8, 16; 6:4; 8:4) or Tirzah (6:4), without at least indirectly calling to mind the One who availed himself of a David or a Solomon to pursue his own objectives" (28). But it seems highly questionable that the missing explicit references to Yahweh can be replaced by a tower named for David (4:4), the "mighty men of Israel" (3:7), Tirzah and Jerusalem, or the "daughters of Jerusalem" (1:5; 2:7; 3:5, 10; 5:8, 16; 8:4). (Israel's "hosts" are not mentioned at all; see the commentary on 6:4, 10.) Solomon is the only figure that enjoys a particular
prominence in the Song. True, 1:5 mentions only the curtains in his
palace, while 8:11-12 ridicules his harem with its many keepers; but in
3:7, 9, 11 he is the hero of the fictitious(?) marriage, and the superscript
(1:1) regards him as the author or at least the patron of the whole collection. Thus, along with the "gazelles" and "wild does," along with
"Love" as a personified power, one can see Solomon as a third entity
bringing honor and significance to the "love" celebrated in the Song.
Solomon ruled during the period that went down in Israel's history as the best and most successful, when all sat under their vines and fig trees enjoying life (l Kgs 4:25 [5:5]; cf. Mic. 4:4).63 But even with all its glow and glitter, the period was not free of conflict, occasioned precisely by Solomon's splendor and uninhibited love affairs (cf. I Kgs 1 1:1-10; 12:4). These conflicts scarcely show up in the Song (though cf. 5:7), because the love described there takes place in the realm of fantasy, quite apart from the narrow limitations of everyday reality. Its favorite place is the inner chamber (1:4; 3:4) or, as already mentioned, out of doors, far from the normal hustle and bustle of daily life (1:5-6, 15-17; 2:10-13; 4:12-5:1; 6:11; 7:11-12 [12-13]). In contrast, the wisdom of the schools is at home in the busiest parts of the city, in the midst of everyday affairs (cf. Prov. 8: 1-3). Whereas the night is the time for love (Cant. 2:7; 3:1; 4:6), the time of regular human labors is the day (Ps. 104:22-23).
Like Ecclesiastes, the Song presents experiences and insights that endanger the everyday life ruled by justice and law, faithfulness and rewards. Both books are ascribed to Solomon, whose knowledge and wisdom were greater than those of all other people (cf. I Kgs 4:29-30 [5:9- 101) and who could do virtually whatever he pleased. He was surely the right man to point out convincingly the limits of human life and its rules. Ecclesiastes calls into question an understanding of justice that expects a meaningful correspondence between acts and consequences and that, as such, was the foundation for both the prophetic oracles of judgment and for traditional wisdom.
More than anything, it is death that destroys a meaningful correspondence between act and consequence. Cant. 8:6-7 compares death to love. Love appears in the Song as a natural force, a mountain stream whose waters sometimes nourish and sometimes destroy. Its energies have not yet been channeled by human ethos into the garden of faithful and fruitful marriage, much less allegorized into a navigable canal carrying colorful-but foreign-ships that then, in gratitude, pollute its water with their refuse. Courageous love and unrelenting death determine the rhythm of life. Love builds up a world that death tears down again. Knowing this situation, the wisdom teachers could not absolutize the
traffic laws needed for daily life. It goes without saying that both synagogue and church have had trouble with the Song and with Ecclesiastes.
Both little books contain a measure of anarchy. When our hearts condemn us for doing wrong (and rightly so, according to church and synagogue), these books give us a glimpse of a God who is greater than our
hearts and who knows everything (1 John 3:20)-both the despairing
nihilism suggested by death (Matt. 27:46) and the vibrant bliss granted by
an unexpected experience of love (Luke 7:44-47).
[image: ]This map shows the towns and regions named in the Song. The numbers in
parentheses indicate how often each name occurs. Jerusalem appears with by far
the greatest frequency (1:5; 2:7; 3:5, 10; 5:8, 16; 6:4; 8:4), although many of these
references seem to be editorial additions. The second most frequent name is
Lebanon (3:9; 4:8, 11; 5:15; 7:4 [5]), whose trees play an important role in
describing the splendor of Solomon (I Kgs 5:6, 9, 14 [20, 23, 28]; 7:2). The three
different terms used for Anti-Lebanon or parts thereof-Hermon, Senir, and
Amana (Cant. 4:8)-were surely better known in the Northern Kingdom than in
the Southern Kingdom. Damascus (7:4 [5]) had a close relation with the Northern
Kingdom, and the latter included the Plain of Sharon (2:1), Mt. Carmel (7:5 [6]),
the slopes of Gilead (4:1; 6:5), Heshbon (7:4 [5]), and Tirzah (6:4). Other than
Jerusalem, only En-gedi (1:14) is in Judah. Kedar (1:5) is far from either
kingdom. Note that, seen from the perspective of Samaria (the center of the
Northern Kingdom), the towns and regions mentioned in the Song are primarily
peripheral and "exotic."
[image: ]
The Song of Songs 1:1
Title
Text
1:1 a The Song of